Turner Place, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Va.

Eight concepts encourage community at Virginia Tech.

For Atomic Pizza, the department wanted to create a space that had an industrial/urban look. As far as the menu offerings, the students told the team that they loved hand-tossed, large-sliced pizza, but they also liked the portability of personal pizzas.

"We also created casserole-style dishes like baked zita, lasagna and stuffed manicotti where we bake them in these single-use dishes and the students can get a portable entrée," Faulkner says. "We put in a large wood-fired pizza oven to give [the space] that flavor and aroma in the location. We do breadsticks and the large pizzas in that oven as well as calzones. We made the pizza unique by using a sourdough crust, which is different from the rest of campus. We make our sauce fresh. One of the signature pies is a sun-dried tomato, balsamic, fig pizza that is hugely popular."

It was a decision that brought the duo recognition at Monday night’s MenuDirections 2015 awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn., which is part of FoodService Director magazine’s annual conference geared towards foodservice operators and suppliers.